The Government session of the Investment Attraction Council (Investment Headquarters) was held in a new format under the chairmanship of First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Roman Sklyar.

Opening the meeting, Roman Sklyar presented to the members of the Investment Staff deputy chairman of the Council on attraction of investments. He became Assistant to the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan on economic issues Aset Irgaliev. It was noted that attraction of investments is under special control of the Head of State.

The first issue on the agenda of the meeting was the reformatting of the work of the Investstab. Recall that in early December the Head of State Tokayev signed a decree "On measures to improve the effectiveness of work to attract investment in the economy of the country", giving the Council special powers. It is noted that the Government today has an ambitious task to increase the volume of the economy to $450 billion by 2029, that is 2 times. To achieve this figure it is necessary to attract at least $150 billion of foreign investment in the country.

Kazakhstan continues to work on creating favorable conditions for investors, improving the legal framework and tools to support investors. However, there are issues of concern to business that need to be addressed more quickly, in manual mode, with the involvement of central and local government agencies, as well as entities of the quasi-governmental sector.

To ensure the effectiveness of this work, the country will implement a system of operational decision-making on support and interaction with investors. To date, Investstab has already considered a number of specific cases of domestic and foreign investors. Problematic issues and bureaucratic barriers faced by business have been revealed.

In addition, all investment projects being implemented in the republic are now being audited to further identify shortcomings of both specific and systemic nature. Amendments to a number of legislative acts are also being prepared to reduce administrative barriers, speed up the process of approval of permits, etc.

Within the framework of the meeting it was considered and approved the vision to move away from the advisory nature of the Investment Headquarters protocols. Now all decisions of the Council will be binding on state bodies and national companies. In case of improper fulfillment of the instructions of the Investment Headquarters, responsible persons, including political civil servants, will be held accountable, up to and including dismissal from their posts. At the same time, the responsibility of both members of the Council and heads of central and local executive bodies, subjects of the quasi-sector will increase significantly for failure to fulfill the set tasks. 

The investment headquarters considered the issues of realization of at least 15 major projects in the manufacturing sector, which should become new points of growth and form the basis for the industrial framework of the country. It is planned to create a whole ecosystem of related industries and productions around them with the involvement of SMEs, which will make it possible to achieve a multiplier effect in the future. The task is to form a final list of projects to be supported by the Council within a short period of time. After approval to form corresponding action plans for each of them.

Problematic issues of realization of two large investment projects - the plant for production of organic juices and purees of Turkish company Goknur Gida worth $98 million and the enterprise for production of French fries of Dutch company Farm Frites ($145 million) were also brought to the meeting. It is stated that from the side of the Ministry of Agriculture, akimats of Zhambyl and Almaty regions allowed delaying the realization of these initiatives. 

As a result of the discussion, the relevant state and local executive bodies are instructed to solve the existing problematic issues on these projects as soon as possible.

#Roman Sklyar #Economy #Investments #Manufacturing industry #President's instruction